If this view is correct, we can understand why so many Indian tribes of South America compel the youth of both sexes to submit to these painful and sometimes fatal ordeals. They imagine that in this way they rid the young folk of certain evils inherent in youth, especially at the critical age of puberty; and when they picture to themselves the evils in a personal form as dangerous spirits or demons, the ceremony of their expulsion may in the strict sense be termed an exorcism. This certainly appears to be the interpretation which the Banivas of the Orinoco put upon the cruel scourgings which they inflict on girls at puberty. At her first menstruation a Baniva girl must pass several days and nights in her hammock, almost motionless and getting nothing to eat and drink but water and a little manioc. While she lies there, the suitors for her hand apply to her father, and he who can afford to give most for her or can prove himself the best man, is promised the damsel in marriage. The fast over, some old men enter the hut, bandage the girl's eyes, cover her head with a bonnet of which the fringes fall on her shoulders, and then lead her forth and tie her to a post set up in an open place. The head of the post is carved in the shape of a grotesque face. None but the old men may witness what follows. Were a woman caught peeping and prying, it would go ill with her; she would be marked out for the vengeance of the demon, who would make her expiate her crime at the very next moon by madness or death. Every participant in the ceremony comes armed with a scourge of cords or of fish skins; some of them reinforce the virtue of the instrument by tying little sharp stones to the end of the thongs. Then, to the dismal and deafening notes of shell-trumpets blown by two or three supernumeraries, the men circle round and round the post, every one applying his scourge as he passes to the girl's back, till it streams with blood. At last the musicians, winding tremendous blasts on their trumpets against the demon, advance and touch the post in which he is supposed to be incorporate. Then the blows cease to descend; the girl is untied, often in a fainting state, and carried away to have her wounds washed and simples applied to them. The youngest of the executioners, or rather of the exorcists, hastens to inform her betrothed husband of the happy issue of the exorcism. "The spirit," he says, "had cast thy beloved into a sleep as deep almost as that of death. But we have rescued her from his attacks, and laid her down in such and such a place. Go seek her." Then going from house to house through the village he cries to the inmates, "Come, let us burn the demon who would have taken possession of such and such a girl, our friend." The bridegroom at once carries his wounded and suffering bride to his own house; and all the people gather round the post for the pleasure of burning it and the demon together. A great pile of firewood